Making love with Jane was the reward for every effort, the antidote to every ill, and—with her—simply another part of being married.
Quinn pondered that conundrum in odd moments at the bank, while staring at the estate ledgers, and in the quiet interludes after lovemaking. He’d spent the first eighteen years of his life scrabbling for survival, spent his entire adulthood amassing wealth from nothing, dodged the noose, been handed a failing dukedom, and left parts of himself scattered from York to London.
Jane was putting him back together. With her smiles and scolds, her shopping expeditions, her affection, her presence at his side, she was bringing a sense of normalcy to a family that had never been normal.
“Would you rather I’d stayed at the bank?” Quinn asked, as he closed their sitting room door. “I am a creature of routine. Perhaps you are too.”
Jane led him into the bedroom. “I’d rather you do as you please, and I cannot imagine a circumstance where climbing into bed with my husband would not please me too.”
She avoided addressing him as Your Grace or Duke, and used his name, or “husband.” Occasionally, she referred to him teasingly as Mr. Wentworth. Even that small domesticity soothed Quinn, and reinforced the notion that with Jane, he could be himself.
Almost.
He tended to her hooks, she took his sleeve buttons. He opened the window, she folded back the covers. They had a rhythm about even this, though when it came to lovemaking, Jane was anything but predictable.
Quinn finished undressing, giving Jane the use of the privacy screen. She emerged in her shift, her hair a single braid draped over one shoulder.
“I’m getting fat.” She regarded her belly as if the fairies had bestowed it upon her the previous night. “I’ll soon lose sight of my feet.”
She wasn’t getting fat, but the swell of her middle was noticeable when she was unclothed. “You’re growing luscious. If you lose sight of your feet, I’ll find them for you.”
Jane leaned against him, all soft, sweet woman. “How did you learn to be so attentive? You describe your father as a parental horror and barely recall your mother. Where did your considerate nature come from, Quinn?”
Considerate? “In all of creation, you are the only person who regards me as considerate, though I suspect my father’s bad example played a role in forming my character. He treated my mother and my stepmother abominably, and when Step-Mama was too exhausted to deal with the children, I did what I could. I cannot ignore a crying baby.”
Jane shifted closer, looping her arms around him. “I treasure this about you. You notice what’s amiss and do something about it, but what if that baby isn’t yours to comfort?”
What an odd question, though technically, the baby Jane carried wasn’t Quinn’s to comfort. He’d consulted with solicitors and barristers, and their opinions were mixed. Gordie had sired the child but hadn’t known Jane had conceived. He thus hadn’t had an opportunity to acknowledge the baby as his. In the normal course, Gordie would have had little choice, because marriage obligated a man to support all children born to his wife during the period of coverture.
Which obligation, Quinn’s father had chafed against at every turn.
“I’m not concerned about the babies who belong to others, Jane. At this very moment, I’m not exactly focused on the baby you’ll have either.”
He kissed her, lest she launch into a conversational flight about which room to convert into a nursery. He could taste the pre-occupation in her, the retreat into that place from which only an expectant mother regarded the world. She had secrets there—fears, physical sensations, hopes—and Quinn allowed her that privacy.
He had secrets too, and his reason for ambushing Jane in the middle of the day was one of them.
“Come to bed,” she said, after a lovely, lazy spate of kissing. “Come to bed and love me.”
He did love her. Loved her courage and her intriguingly complicated female body, her pragmatism and her generous heart. The words remained lodged in his heart, so he tried to show her his feelings with touches and tickles.
When Jane swung her leg over him and straddled him on the bed, Quinn was already having to do sums in his head to restrain his desire.
“You look so serious,” Jane said, drawing a finger between his brows. “And yet, you make me laugh in bed.”
“You’re the one who referred to yourself as a rutting heifer.”
Jane mooed against the side of his neck bearing the scar, then bit his earlobe. She had a curiosity about his body that went beyond the sexual, and suggested to Quinn that to her, he wasn’t simply attractive, he was interesting.
“Shall we name the child Bossy?” Jane asked, straightening to lift her shift over her head. “Or perhaps I’ll deserve that appellation.” She studied her breasts quizzically. “I have never considered myself well endowed, but my proportions are changing.”
“Will you use a wet nurse?” Quinn hoped not. This was ungenteel of him, a relic of his upbringing, but the notion that a stranger would nourish the baby sat ill with him. Some women nursed a child for a few months, then hired that stranger. Others never put the child to their own breast—others who could afford that choice.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Jane said, touching her nose to his. “We haven’t even decided where to put the nursery yet.”
If he let her wander off on that topic she’d still be chattering away at sunset, and Quinn’s schedule did not permit him that much patience.
“We haven’t chosen a name,” he said, lifting his hips to scoot closer. “Perhaps we can discuss that later.”
He eased into the joining, and though he and Jane had made love a dozen times, he still marveled at the pleasure and intimacy. Lovemaking with Jane was more than physical union, it was…
The quest for words slipped away as Jane folded down onto Quinn’s chest. Her caresses and sighs confirmed that she wanted a sweet, relaxed loving, and so he sent her over the edge only twice before permitting himself to spend.
His hands drifted over her back, tracing sturdy bones and elegant curves while Jane’s breathing slowed. What did it say about him, that these moments of absolute contentment and closeness were as enjoyable as the erotic satisfaction?
“I’ll fall asleep,” she murmured.
She always fell asleep after lovemaking. Quinn was counting on her remaining true to form.
“You rest,” he said, easing her to her side. “I’ll be right back.”
He kissed her shoulder, left the bed, and brought her a damp flannel. Before she passed it back to him, she was already yawning.
“You’ll think me lazy,” she said, cuddling down into the covers.
“I think you lovely.” And worth protecting at any cost.
Quinn climbed in beside her and held her until he was certain she was lost to dreams. With one more kiss to her cheek, he slipped from the bed, dressed, and prepared to confront a murderess.
* * *
“Himself never comes home in the middle of the day,” Ned said.
Davies was peeling apples, the long, thin spiral of skin hanging over the slop bucket. “Himself is married and a duke. He needn’t get your permission to do anything.”
Ned took an apple from the basket. This time of year, they were less than crisp but still fine for cooking—or juggling. He started with two, because he was out of practice.
“But we’re not to leave him to his own devices. Miss Jane said.”
“He’s not alone, Ned Dunderpate. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Taught meself. Juggling’s good for a copper every now and then, a legal copper.” He caught the two apples, selected a third, and started over. “Being a pickpocket is like doing a magic trick. What was in a bloke’s pocket disappears and he’s none the wiser.”
“Being a pickpocket is how you ended up in Newgate.”
Three apples required attention—five was the best Ned had ever done—and arguing with Davies required attention.
“I’m done picking pockets.” Ned hoped this was true, though the duties he’d been given consisted merely of taking the air twice a day when himself went to the bank, and delivering the occasional message for the bank.
That and regular trips to the pawnshops.
Which was a worrisome state of affairs. In Ned’s opinion, giving a boy a cot in the laundry, three meals a day, and new boots entitled His Grace to slavish devotion, not simply stepping and fetching around the neighborhood.
“If you’re smart, you’re done with all the games,” Davies said, starting on a second apple. “Not another boy in all of London has gone from Newgate to a duke’s household. Play your cards right, you could be a footman.”
The back door closed. In the window above the sink, Ned saw a boot-level view of the duke crossing the garden.
Ned caught all three apples and tossed one of them to Davies. “A tiger’s work is never done.” He bolted up the steps and caught up with his employer. “So where are we off to, guv?”
The duke kept walking. “I am off to the bank, on foot. You will remain at your post in the kitchen in case the ladies need your services this afternoon.”
Like hell. “It’s half day. Where are the running footmen?”
“Probably getting drunk and flirting with the tavern maids, as is their right when they are not at work.” Himself passed through the gate at the foot of the garden and pulled it shut behind him.
Ned clambered over. “You can’t be running around London by yourself. Miss Jane said. Somebody put your neck in a bloody noose, and we have to keep you safe.”
His Grace of Doom stopped in the middle of the cobbled alley. Ned had never seen such a cold expression on a man’s face, and he counted many a hardened criminal among his acquaintances.
“Ned, I applaud your loyalty, but your insubordination will cost you your post if you don’t desist.”
“You’d sack me?” Ned’s voice had cracked, so great was his consternation.
The duke slapped his gloves against his thigh, looked up and down the alley, then turned his glower back on Ned.
“I will turn you off without a character if you don’t remain here as directed.”
Which only confirmed that Miss Jane had been right: Himself wasn’t used to having people look after him. Neither was Ned. Miss Jane had explained that Ned would have to adjust. Adjusting was hard, so Ned didn’t haul off and smack his employer in the stones despite the temptation.
“We were in jail together, and you’d give me the boot?”
That cold gaze grew frigid. “Without a character. Tossed out on your ear, finished, sacked.”
Ned had never had a character and wasn’t exactly sure what one was. He did know that for the duke to march off across Town on foot, without grooms, without Miss Jane, was bloody stupid.
“Then I’ll be Ned Sacked.”
Had Ned not been returning glower for glower, he would have missed the gleam of humor that crossed the duke’s features. Miss Jane had said His Grace was full of bluster. Ned hadn’t wanted to test the theory.
In the next instant, he was scooped up and deposited on the ladies’ mounting block.
“You,” the duke said, jabbing a finger at Ned, “are Ned Wentworth. If you’d like a middle name, I can suggest Pestilential, Pigheaded, or Plaguey. Ponder your choice while I return to the bank, by myself, along a route I have traveled in safety for years. Any word to the rest of the staff of this altercation will earn you a severe dressing down, Ned. I mean it.”
Whatever an altercation was. “You’re giving me your name? The name of your own family?”
The duke pulled on black leather gloves. “See that you never dishonor it. Now get back in the house.”
He stalked off down the alley, while Ned’s throat went tight, and his breathing hitched.
“Ned Wentworth. I like it.” He took another breath. “Edward Wentworth. Mister Edward Wentworth.”
He wiped his eyes on his sleeve—the coal dust in London was awful—and began sorting through middle names. Himself was named Quinton.
“Edward Quinton Wentworth.” That didn’t feel quite right.
Something else wasn’t quite right. If the duke was walking back to the bank using the route he’d followed safely “for years,” he should have turned at the intersection of the next alley. He kept going straight, away from the bank. For half a minute, Ned debated what a loyal, insubordinate, pestilential Wentworth should do.
Then he hopped off the wall and started after the duke.
* * *
Jane dreamed of Quinn as she’d first known him, confined to a gentleman’s cage in Newgate, coatless, serving her gingerbread, and offering her a miracle. She reached across the bed thinking that now, finally, was a moment when she could raise the topic of Papa’s ridiculous notions regarding Gordie’s will, but her hand encountered only cool sheets.
She opened her eyes and found herself alone.
“That dratted bank.” She’d wanted to dance a jig at the idea of Quinn cutting ties with the day-to-day operation of the bank. At least five ducal estates needed his attention, and he’d enjoy putting them to rights.
He might also enjoy setting the buffoons in the Lords on their ears, though Jane hoped to make some progress socializing with those buffoons before her confinement began.
She rang for Susan to assist her with her hooks, pinned up her braid, and opened the copy of Debrett’s she’d been studying for the past several days. Polite society was closely interconnected, and surely a ducal family could claim a few distant relatives among those assembling for the season?
“Will you need anything else, ma’am?” Susan asked.
“If Lady Althea is home, please let her know that I’d like a word with her.”
“She and Lady Constance are having tea in the studio.”
They weren’t having tea. They had chocolate, cordial, good old English ale, and the occasional medicinal tot, but never tea.
“My request is not urgent. Lady Constance is welcome to join us. If Lord Stephen isn’t otherwise occupied, he’s welcome as well.”
Quinn was a duke, and the time had come for polite society to acknowledge him as such.
Susan withdrew, and Jane opened the desk drawer to retrieve paper and pencil. A duchess was expected to entertain and to be entertained. She had the next eight weeks—the remainder of the season—to begin the arduous task of establishing her husband among his peers and neighbors.
The paper and pencils were in their usual places, but the letters Quinn had been personally safeguarding were missing.
“Cash, coins, and his letters patent can sit in a safe, but the letters from That Woman…”
Jane gave the rest of the desk a hurried inspection, then looked over the desk in the bedroom. No letters. Quinn had kept those letters for years. Why would he…?
Althea called to Jane from the sitting room. “You asked to see us?”
“I did.” Jane joined them in the sitting room and closed the bedroom door behind her. “I wanted to discuss our social calendar.”
Constance took the seat at the desk. “I don’t socialize. There, we’ve discussed my calendar.”
Althea remained standing. “Should a woman in your condition be socializing?”
“My condition is barely evident,” Jane said, “at least when I’m wearing higher-waisted dresses. The baby isn’t due for another several months, and I do not intend to spend that entire time as a recluse sitting on a velvet pillow sewing baby clothes. The Wentworths are now a ducal family, and the title brings certain obligations.”
Constance drummed her fingers on the blotter. “You could do charitable work.”
Charitable work had killed Mama, though for a duchess, charitable work was probably a version of sitting on a velvet pillow.
“Your brother is more than generous to the charities of his choice.”
“You’re a clergyman’s daughter,” Althea said. “You should have causes of your own.”
This family was Jane’s cause. “What aren’t you two telling me? I expect grousing from you at every turn, but not dissembling.”
Althea shot a glance at the door, confirming Jane’s sense of something amiss.
“We should let her know,” Constance said. “She’ll find out soon enough, and not responding to invitations is rude. Even I know that.”
Althea crossed her arms. “You tell her.”
“Somebody tell me,” Jane said, settling into a wing chair. “And do not think to mention my condition in your own defense.”
“The invitations have started,” Constance said. “The Duke of Elsmore was the first. We thought it was a fluke, a jest in poor taste, but the cards kept coming. Then the Duchess of Moreland sent a footman around with her card. That means we can call on her.”
“The Duchess of Moreland?” Jane did not consider herself a duchess. She was a woman married to a man who’d happened into a title through a series of unfortunate events. Her Grace of Moreland was a duchess from her tiara to her embroidered satin slippers, and the power she wielded was legendary.
“We met her at the glovemaker’s,” Jane said, upset rising in her belly that had nothing to do with the baby. “She was so kind, and we’ve failed to acknowledge her card?”
“Stephen says there’s honor among dukes,” Althea replied, inching toward the door. “They take an interest in one another because there are so few of them.”
“Devonshire sent a card,” Constance said. “We’re welcome to call on him too.” She sounded bewildered rather than pugnacious. “There are others, any number of courtesy titles.”
This was good news masquerading as a disaster, proof that polite society could forgive and forget, and Quinn would be so pleased.…
“Does Quinn know about this?”
Althea became fascinated with a bouquet of pink and yellow tulips on the sideboard. “He asked us to set the invitations aside and said he’d deal with them later.”
Oh, Quinn. “And the pair of you said not a word to me. When did Elsmore’s invitation arrive?”
They exchanged a guilty glance.
“Two weeks ago,” Constance said. “Give or take.”
Jane rose, because for some situations counting to three was a complete waste of breath.
“My mother was a lady. She married down, as many ladies do, but she made sure I knew how to comport myself in all company. Do you know how inconsiderate it is to ignore an invitation? These matters are bounded by protocol, etiquette, an agreed-upon—” Why weren’t they arguing with her? Why weren’t they dismissing her concerns? “You have reminded Quinn about these invitations, haven’t you?”
“We nag him,” Constance said. “He puts us off, says we’ll have time for all of that later. That marchionesses and countesses can wait to be acknowledged by a duchess.”
Marchionesses and countesses? Countesses?
“That man,” Jane muttered. “That stubborn, misguided, foolish…Quinn is trying to keep me from crossing paths with one countess in particular, a lady who will doubtless be in attendance at some of the functions I’ll be invited to. This is why we don’t go to the theater, why we don’t drive out at the Fashionable Hour.”
Constance looked confused. “What countess?”
“Her,” Althea said. “The Countess of Tipton.”
Constance, for once, had no terse retort.
“I’ve started reading the society pages,” Jane said. “She’s here in London with her husband.” And Quinn’s letters from her were missing. No thief could breach the Wentworth citadel, and the staff would not dare move letters without permission, which meant Quinn himself had those letters.
“You should sit down,” Althea said. “You look pale.”
Jane’s mind was leaping from fact to conjecture to fear. “Quinn came home at midday for no reason. He didn’t take his nooning here, didn’t come home to retrieve a forgotten document. It’s half day, so we have little staff about, and I would bet your oldest harp, Althea, that Quinn gave his running footmen the afternoon off too.”
Constance sat up very straight. “What are you saying?”
The intimacies, the tender confidences, the oh-so-considerate lover leaving his wife to nap away her afternoon…
“He has gone to her,” Jane said. “He’s either attempting to placate her with offers of money or favors, or he’s planning to do her an injury, which she well deserves.”
In either case, Quinn hadn’t confided in his wife. Worse than that, he’d pretended to confide in Jane, pretended he was considering leaving the bank, pretended he’d missed her so badly, he’d been truant from his ledgers.…
Not you too, Quinn. Please don’t let my husband be among those to ignore the sensible course and march off to certain doom in the name of his blasted principles.
The fear of that certain doom nearly paralyzed her, for a woman scorned who had a title, money, and a long, bitter memory wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of Quinn’s honorable nature. Though Jane was furious with Quinn too. Gordie’s true colors had always been evident; Jane had simply been too inexperienced and desperate to spot a handsome rascal wearing the king’s colors.
Quinn, though, had deliberately set out to deceive her.
“What will you do?” Althea asked.
“What I should do is leave,” Jane said. “I should do as many fashionable wives do and establish my own household, free from meddling papas, dissembling husbands, quarrelsome family, and unreturned calling cards. Quinn has gone daft if he thinks gratifying that woman with a pitched battle will work to his advantage.”
Constance was on her feet. “You aren’t making sense. Quinn hates the countess, as do I. You don’t know what he was like before. He never rode in the park, never took us shopping, never read the paper at the breakfast table because we might see his lips moving when he came to long words. He’s doing the best he can, and you can’t leave.”
Yes, I can. “How many times am I expected to forgive and forget willful dishonesty? What Quinn is doing—deliberately provoking a woman whose schemes have failed—is wrong, stupid, and dangerous. I’ve told him as much over and over, and rather than cede to my wishes or offer me any sound rebuttal, he lies to me, over and over.”
Gordie had lied, saying he was off to the Horse Guards when in fact he’d been swilling gin at the pub and ogling tavern maids.
Papa had lied, whisking Mama’s treasures off to the pawnshop, and then pretending they’d been misplaced.
Mama had lied, claiming she was on the mend, only to make her illness worse through overexertion.
That Quinn would lie as well…
“You’re a duchess,” Althea said. “You can’t fly into the bows over a misunderstanding. Quinn might well be back by supper with some perfectly reasonable explanation for why you can’t find a batch of old letters.”
A wave of weariness hit Jane, which was ridiculous when she’d just spent the better part of an hour napping.
“You don’t believe that, Althea. Now you’re attempting to deceive me as well, deceive me again.”
Going home to Papa would never be an option, but Jane had pin money more than sufficient to establish a household, and she had her pride. She did not want to leave the man she loved, but condoning another betrayal was impossible.
“Beg pardon, Your Grace, your ladyships.” Ivor appeared at the door. “Reverend Winston is in the sitting room and asking to see Her Grace. Shall I have a tea tray sent up?”
The day needed only this. Jane nearly told Ivor to send up an entire meal, but Constance was drumming her fingers against her skirts, tapping each finger eight times, her expression carefully blank.
That was a Wentworth in distress.
Althea had glanced at the clock three times and checked the watch pinned to her bodice twice. Jane would not have been surprised to see Quinn’s sister drop to her knees and crawl out the door—or the window.
Another Wentworth in distress.
“No tea tray, Ivor. And you and Kristoff will attend me. Althea and Constance, we are not finished.”
Though perhaps Jane and Quinn were, assuming he survived his altercation with the Countess of Tipton.